Sport climber and QUT exercise physiology student Clea Hall is halfway through a summer sports adventure in the northern hemisphere where she’s competing in two major international championships.
Clea represented Australia at the 2024 Youth World Championships in China in the last week of August, and she's now in Slovenia getting ready to compete in the FISU World University Championship.
Clea finished a respectable 38th in the world in China, which was the 18-year-old’s last event as a youth athlete.
“I walked out with a smile on my face and gave the climbs everything that I had,” Clea said.
“While I am taking away a lot of things to work on, I also wanted to acknowledge how big this feels.
“I’ve been a youth athlete since I started climbing and I pretty much grew up in the climbing community … an old chapter is closing, but a new one is opening.”
Clea got to do some travel in China and across Europe in between her two major competitions.
This week, she’s in the medieval city of Koper in Slovenia for the FISU (Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire / International University Sports Federation) World University Championships for Sports Climbing.
The event includes bouldering (Clea’s favourite climbing style, shown in video below) and lead climbing – both of which are done on constructed walls.
Clea’s trip has been made possible with the help of her QUT-Australian Institute of Sport Scholarship.
She was one of 10 QUT student athletes to receive the $10,000 QUT-AIS Scholarship earlier this year.
“Receiving the QUT-AIS scholarship removed a lot of financial stress and means that I can achieve a balance between my sport, studies and life,” she said.
“I’m using the money to fund two trips – this one and one to Japan in January for training.”
Clea was born in South Africa and speaks French at home, thanks to her French mum.
Her family decided to travel around the world on a boat when she was two years old and she lived on a 44-foot catamaran for two years, eventually arriving in Brisbane.
“It was never decided that Australia would be the end goal and yet here we are,” she said.
“I have been living in Brisbane for 13 years and love it here.”
Clea started doing sports climbing at a Brisbane gym with her brother when she was 10 years old.
“It started mainly as a sibling rivalry but, as the years passed, I grew a deep passion for the sport," she said.
“Sport climbing is so much more than people think. Not only do you have to be physically fit, but you have to find the best and most efficient way up the wall that is suited to you.
“I really enjoy how each boulder and each route teaches you something new and is completely unique to everything else you’ve tried. The learning is infinite.”
Clea trains about 25 to 30 hours each week and is based at Urban Climb at West End in inner Brisbane.
She learns and practises different movement combinations to give her an arsenal of movements she can draw on when presented with new walls at competitions.
She said the buzz she got from event climbing was magical.
“Face to face with the first boulder in a finals, feeling completely calm and in a flow state, trying to figure out exactly how your body will move through the climb … there’s no better experience,” she said.
“Especially when you get through the ‘crux’ (the most difficult moves) of the boulder that you didn’t think you could do … You hear the crowd roaring behind you and sharing the experience – it’s really quite magical.”
Clea is in her first year of a clinical exercise physiology degree with QUT’s Faculty of Health.
She said she had always wanted to study a health-related field, as she wanted to help other people – and also learn information that would help her own athletic career and other female athletes.
“Being a female in a currently male-dominated sport makes me aware of so many injustices,” she said.
“After I finish my Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology, I hope to go into research about peak female performance and the menstrual cycle.
“I believe that more communal understanding around how female performance fluctuates can help alleviate some of the stigma around women in sport as ‘weaker’ than their male counterparts.”
Follow Clea’s climbing on Instagram: @cleahall147
Main image at top: Clea Hall competing in China at the 2024 Youth World Championships. Photo by Richard Aspland / IFSC (International Federation of Sport Climbing).
QUT Media contacts:
- Mechelle McMahon, media@qut.edu.au
- After hours, 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au
